A skating video,  only this time it’s Molly who is skating.

She did her first competition this morning at Whitley Bay,   and I think she did a really lovely job.  I am sure you will agree with me.

She was competing in the Beginners Under 12s,   and was the youngest by quite a way,  so she was a little disappointed with her result,   but I thought she was brilliant.

today I went to a class at the scrapbook shop, nothing unusual in
that, except today the class was for the kids and Mum’s just had to
be the helpers.

Originally I was only going to take Katie, but Gill said Molly was
welcome to give it a try if she wanted, and she really surprised me
and did a lovely job, and Katie was amazing and made an absolutely
beautiful album.

Tomorrow they went to spend the day scrapbooking at home. They both
have big plans for things they want to make, and if they are going to
work carefully and make lovely things then I am all for that.

I spend a lot of time talking about scrapbooking, reading about it, even thinking about it, but I am not so good at actually getting down to doing any at the moment.

At the last crop I went too, I tackled a pile of school photos that I;ve been carrying around with me for about 2 years, and got them all done but one. This is the final one, and so whilst this is not the most exciting layout I’ve ever created – it’s quite nice to know that I am all caught up with school photos. There is no journalling on

this, but if there was it would read something like ‘This is Molly at Busy Bee’s nursery. Molly went to Busy Bees for only a short while as her Granny hated it and every time she picked her up from BB’s she would complain that it wasn’t good enough for her grand-daughter, eventually a new nursery opened up and Molly moved there and granny
was much happier’

Also interesting to note is that Molly had dark hair in this photo.
She had very black hair when she was born, and she’s totally blonde
now, I’m not sure exactly when she changed from dark to blonde,
definitely sometime before her first birthday.

I’d like to offer all the usual disclaimers about how it’s not really crooked in real life, but let’s be honest, it is, and that’s just the way it goes. I also had massive issues with the chipboard, I am definitely challenged in covering chipboard – the paper was looking very raggy around the edges. Katie came in while I was struggling with the edges and said – well just outline them with something, and of course, she was correct, so I’ve sanded all the edges which made them look much better – then since I was sanding, I sanded the edges of the patterned paper (some lovely KI Memories I must have had for at least 4 years, it matches Molly’s dress perfectly, I knew I was saving it for something).

I’m just testing blogging straight from Picasa. I love including photso in my posts, but resizing and uploading gets to be a bit of adrag, so I read a tip here which will allow me to email them straightinto my blog from Picasa. That’s the theory anyhow.

Why knives and forks? Well, these aren’t just any knives and forks,these are the special little knives and forks used by little people in this house. They were a present for Katie in 2000 and have been in
constant use ever since, until today….

Apparantly Molly is too big for ‘baby’ cutlery, and now needs grown ups knives and forks. That makes me rather sad

Molly and I are home today, She went to Nursery this morning and we will spend the afternoon together. When she goes to big school in September I will miss my afternoons with Molly, probably as much as I look forward to those free afternoons somedays at the moment!

Yesterday Molly announced that she needed a bag for school, something to take spare clothes in. We’ve managed up to now with a carrier bag, but apparantly that was no good and she wanted a bag of her own, just like Katie’s ballet bag (which I made a few years ago).

It seemed a fair request, and since I’d rather make things than tidy the house, I agreed she needed one, so we went to the fabric shop and she chose some lovely fabric called ‘Princess Pink’ which set me back the princessly sum of £2.50.

All afternoon yesterday she asked if I was going to make the bag, and her first words when she woke up this morning were, did you make my bag yet? So while she was at Nursery I made her a bag. Its not fancy, but I realised after I’d finished that I could have done it differently and hidden the seams inside the lining, but she is quite happy with it.

It’s lined with some pink dotty material I already had, so it’s just 4 layers of fabric sewn on 3 sides, then the 4th side turned over twice, and ribbon threaded through. Then I poked the ends of the ribbon through the bottom seam and sewed it down tightly to make a string that you can chuck over your shoulder.

I think if I tried it again, I would make the outside bag and the lining separately and then there would be no seams showing inside, but I’m fairly happy with this.

Please ignore Molly’s outfit, she came in from school and got herself changed and I’ve no idea what she is wearing!

I keep dabbling with digi, but never really putting in the time to figure it out properly. I don’t know why exactly as I am much more likely to spend time at the keyboard then I am sticking and glueing.

I spotted a free template I liked the look of here and decided to have another go. It took my ages to work out how to actually use the template, but once I’d learned about the magic of grouping (Cntl-G) I was away. And using a kit I downloaded from ages ago, I produced this rather bright layout with some favorite photos of Molly.

Credits: kit by Sara Carling – Surfer Girl
Template by Doris Castle

My father in law was 80 on Friday, and since 80 is an extra special birthday we had a party. Phil’s sisters flew in from abroad, and it was lovely to see everyone. We don’t get to see them often enough.

Katie, Molly and Jolanda enjoyed spending the weekend together. Once they heard there would be speeches, they decided they wouldn’t be left out so they got together and wrote a speech of their own. It was a really lovely tribute to their Poppa Bill and I am sure he was thrilled to hear it.

Unfortuanately it was a very fleeting trip and they have headed back home now. We shall have to make arrangements to get together again, in the meantime hopefully we can keep in touch with our blogs.